Edward Rogers Wood

The home of the art collector Frank P. Wood on Bayview Avenue next to his brother

Edward Rogers Wood (May 11, 1866 – June 16, 1941) was a prominent financier in Canadian business, notable for his role in the development of the Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company Limited (later Brascan Ltd, then amalgamated into Brookfield Asset Management) and for his links with the “Peterborough Methodist Mafia” of George Albertus Cox. Wood was born in Peterborough, Ontario to an Irish father (John W Wood) and a Scottish mother (Jane Porter). He married Agnes Euphemia Smart in Toronto on July 18, 1891. They had a son Wyman and a daughter Mildred.

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In his early teens, Edward Wood joined the G.N.W. Telegraph Company owned by Peterborough's Mayor George Albertus Cox and later Senator George Albertus Cox. After completing school Edward joined Cox's financial firm, Central Canada Loan & Savings Company. Both men incorporated in 1898 the National Trust Company in Toronto, Ontario. National Trust became part of Bank of Nova Scotia as Scotia Trust in 1997. In 1901 Cox and Wood formed Dominion Securities (now part of the Royal Bank of Canada) with the purpose of underwriting and retailing of provincial, municipal, and utility securities. In 1902 Edward Wood shifted Dominion Securities into industrial finance by financing of Dominion Iron & Steel and Dominion Coal. In 1910 he formed Dominion Steel Corporation, where his younger brother Frank Porter Wood was a President. He was at that time a leading financier and also became active in philanthropy as well as in volunteer endeavors for the University of Toronto, Toronto General Hospital, Art Gallery of Ontario and the YMCA.

Edward Wood built and lived in Wymilwood (Queen's Park, and named after his children Mildred and Wyman) with his family from 1902 to 1924. He donated Wymilwood; an Elizabethan-style mansion now called Falconer Hall to the University of Toronto and is now part of the UofT law school. In 1924 he moved to Glendon Hall on Bayview Avenue, property adjoining his 20 year younger brother Frank P Wood. His widow, Euphemia, presented Glendon Hall to the University of Toronto in 1950.

Phillips, Jim; Roy McMurtry; John T. Saywell (2008). Essays in the History of Canadian Law. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, University of Toronto Prss. p. 410. ISBN0-8020-9911-4.